EV's have a long way to go before I feel comfortable buying one. A friend here at work just went through a long ordeal with his. It's brand new and it was in the shop for about 2 weeks.
Man, that really sucks. I hope you can get this all sorted out. If I were the judge, I'd tell Btech to replace the radio warranty or not since it's not what you actually ordered.
I'm not familiar with that specific radio but if you use one of the designated repeater channels, it should have the +5 already set. You should only need to enter the tones. Being a GMRS radio that is probably the case. When using non-type certified radios you will have to enter the offset.
Correction:
With CHIRP you do have to enter the +5 offset. With most factory GMRS software you don't.
@Tiercel That is exactly what I was talking about. When you "Uploaded from Radio" CHIRP created a file specific to that radio. That is the file you can download to that specific radio. You can copy channels and paste from any file but the file itself is radio specific. I can't even use a UV-5R GMRS file with a UV-5R8W.
@WSAA635 Welcome. GMRS is great for a lot of things. As far as random contacts, it's hit and miss depending on where you live and if your local repeater is linked. Where I live, there are lots of linked repeaters and therefore lots of people to talk to. Others aren't so lucky. Hopefully you will find a good group to talk to.
@nokones Nice setup. I have a friend I talk to on GMRS often who has a Jeep and an XTL5000. He has a channel mounted overhead and that is where he mounted the remote head. @OffRoaderX has one in his Jeep. Seems like Jeeps and XTL5000 kind of go together.